Sir Mark Prescott is ready to take the wraps off the majority of his powerful string after a season blighted by a virus.

"We have had a yard full of sick horses, so the best thing to do was to leave them and not muck them up," said the Newmarket trainer. "They are coming right now and we are having a few more runners.

"I remember one year, I didn't have a runner from the tenth of May to the seventeenth of July - and that was the only year when I ended up being the top trainer in Newmarket."

He laughed: "My training colleagues were convinced I had done it deliberately! It would be nice if it happens again but I had a lot of good horses that year."

Prescott is maintaining a watching brief before deciding if Prescription will take her chance in the six-furlong EBF Fillies' Handicap at Newmarket on Saturday.

The four-year-old was a well-backed favourite for the Totesport Victoria Cup at Ascot on what was supposed to be her seasonal reappearance in May but was withdrawn.

"She needs to have soft ground and won't run unless that's the case," said the Heath House handler. "The problem with 48-hour declarations is that it is a job to know what the weather will do."

Lambourn trainer Marcus Tregoning, whose yard has also been laid low by a virus, confirmed that Finjaan, who has not run since finishing ninth to Sea The Stars in the 2,000 Guineas in May, is nearing a return to the track.

"He worked well this week and we hope we can get him ready for the Betfair Cup at Goodwood on 28 July," he said.